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Inon Barnatan, piano
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PROGR A M PrĂŠlude, Choral et Fugue...................................................................................................CESAR FRANCK (1822-1890) Sonata in E-flat minor, Op. 26........................................................................................SAMUEL BARBER Allegro energico (1910-1981) Allegro vivace e leggero Adagio mesto Fuga: Allegro con spirito INTERMISSION Sonata No.18 in G major, D.894.................................................................................FRANZ SCHUBERT Molto moderato e cantabile Andante Menuetto: Allegro moderato Allegretto La valse...................................................................................................................................MAURICE RAVEL (1875-1937)
This performance was supported in part by a grant from the Wisconsin Arts Board with funds from the State of Wisconsin and the National Endowment for the Arts. Presented by the Wisconsin Union Directorate Performing Arts Committee, directed this year by Annie Wright. This performance was supported in part by a grant from the Wisconsin Arts Board with funds from the State of Wisconsin and the National Endowment for the Arts. Media sponsor is WORT, 89.9 FM. UW-Madison students: to join the Wisconsin Union Directorate Theater Committee and help program our upcoming events, please contact Annie Wright at ahwright2@wisc.edu
Inon Barnatan
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ABOUT THE MUSIC - NOTES BY PERRY ALL AIRE Franck: Prelude, Chorale and Fugue César-Auguste Franck was born in 1822 to a Flemish family which had produced distinguished painters as far back as the early seventeenth century, but Cesar’s father was a banker. When his young son showed evidence of prodigious musical talent and remarkable keyboard facility, the father began to have visions of fame and significant financial reward; this all culminated in a concert tour when the boy was eleven, the result being quite successful but exhausting for the sensitive youth. When at fifteen he became a student at the Paris Conservatoire, he easily demonstrated his virtuosic-level genius at the keyboard, including transposition and an exemplary talent for improvisation. Franck won several prizes in Fugue but was not especially noted as an organist. Yet only a few years after graduation he would be invited to become organist at the large and important church of Saints-Clotilde in Paris which had just installed a splendid new organ built by the Flemish master Aristide Cavaillé -Coll. Franck would spend essentially the next thirty years in the peace and security of that organ loft, honing his great skills as a composer; his countryman the organ-builder would often hear and admire Franck’s lengthy improvisations. Franck’s fortunes changed abruptly with the founding in 1870 of the Société Nationale whose mission was the energetic advancement of contemporary French music; some of the initial members of the Société were Franck’s friends Fauré, Massenet and Duparc (and later his devoted student Vincent d’Indy). Soon Franck’s works began to be heard and known, and in 1872 he was given a professorship in organ at the Paris Conservatoire in belated recognition. He then began a distinguished teaching career through which he would have a profound influence on the upcoming generation of French composers in particular and many others in general. By the spring of 1884, Franck realized that he wished to write for solo piano again, something he had not done since early in his career. He had come to feel the music now being written for piano made great use of the advanced technical capabilities of the instrument, but had little to say aesthetically, ignoring new possibilities in the spirit of Bach and Beethoven. Franck began to address this issue by starting to write a Prelude and Fugue in the traditional sense, but as he worked on the piece it took on more personal aspects, becoming eventually his great work for solo piano, the Prelude, Chorale, and Fugue. As the title implies, the piece is in one large movement with three sections linked together, and with related thematic material. The Prelude begins with a rippling introduction that establishes the main key of B minor, after which a strong melodic figure ending in an appoggiatura is heard, and this motif will be important for the whole work. The motif is implanted in a small melodic arch and combined with elements of the introduction to make a shimmering, beautiful mini-movement--featuring some of Franck’s characteristic searching chromaticism which, after its climax, ends quickly in a quiet B minor. At this point a subtle modulation drops us into the warm world of E-flat major and we are into the Chorale, with its spun-out melodies and exalted air. One of its main features is a returning melody propelled by tall arpeggios starting in the deep bass. Franck’s skill in striking modulation is on full display in this interior section of 4
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the larger work, and it is the arpeggio-driven melody that creates its climax, after which another quiet ending occurs, this time in E-flat minor. Next comes a transitional passage whose purpose is to bring us back to B minor--largely via a dominant pedal point--and establish the motto theme as the subject of the big concluding Fugue. But this is a fugue with a difference, because in its course it becomes apparent that material from the Prelude is being used, and when the big arpeggiated tune from the Chorale appears in all its sweetness and is finally combined with a thundering version of the fugue tune, we know that the composer is employing one of his favorite devices, cyclic form. This leads to a frankly pianistic coda which points to B major, and it is in this key that the entire work ends in a burst of triumph.
Barber: Piano Sonata Op. 26 “The history of the arts is filled with examples of those who expanded the means of expression. There have, however, been other artists who were content to create within established means. In music, for example, such composers would include Bach, Mozart, Mendelssohn and Brahms. Samuel Barber is in this tradition. Barber’s work is widely recognized and accepted as having enriched the literature of virtually every facet of musical expression. Each piece he has created is characterized by deeply felt emotions couched in the sophisticated terms of a master craftsman…” These words were spoken by American composer William Schumann as he presented to his colleague Samuel Barber the Gold Medal for Music at the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters in 1976. Barber had found his style early as a committed and sincere Romantic composer. At the age of 14 he was accepted as the second student at the then newly-formed Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, where he studied piano, singing, composing, and conducting. At 21, as part of his graduation thesis, he made a masterful setting of Matthew Arnold’s poem Dover Beach for baritone, voice and string quartet, and sang the work himself. A short time later, he played and sang the piece at the piano for Ralph Vaughan Williams who admitted “I tried several times to set ‘Dover Beach,’ but you really got it.” In 1935 Barber sang the work on NBC radio, attracting the attention of Arturo Toscanini, much to the composer’s good fortune. Dover Beach had already received its public premiere in New York City at a concert sponsored by the League of Composers in 1933. It was also the League of Composers who commissioned Barber’s Piano Sonata in 1949 in celebration of their twenty-fifth anniversary. Its premiere was given on January 4, 1950 at Carnegie Hall with Vladimir Horowitz at the piano. It is a bold and imposing work, in which the composer makes use of a rich palate that allows him to mix an underlying tonality centered around E-flat minor with daring chromatic strokes and even dashes of 12-tone rows, yet through the work shines a powerful and passionate lyricism. The first movement, in traditional sonata form, opens stormily, setting a mood of heightened emotion. Almost immediately a 12-tone row can be detected in the right hand, in triplets, but it serves really as connective tissue leading to the attractive and more rhythmically stable second theme. The development section features torrents of Inon Barnatan
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chromaticism and lively syncopation that seem to recall Bartók and Prokofiev. The short second movement, a kind of scherzo, offers relief from the turgid opening movement. With light and playful gestures it dances blithely through the upper half of the keyboard. The darker mood of the opening movement returns for the following Adagio mesto, where again we find Barber experimenting with 12-tone rows, but he is not so concerned with the “rules” of their employment as with making them serve his expressive purpose by whatever means he chooses. And this expression manifests itself as an eloquent, even tragic, urgency, a true song of the heart. The final movement of Barber’s Piano Sonata is a towering conclusion to this monumental work. It is a brilliant fugue, and this time the chosen form is fully worked out according to the traditional rules of this old and noble vehicle. It deliberately refers to the kind of blazing dissonance found in the first movement and also has a section which sounds like the cheerful kind of prairie folk dance found in the popularist music of Copland and others. But the overall character of the movement is one of sheer virtuosity, a magnificent tribute to the great pianist who gave the Sonata’s premiere. Surely, this is one of Barber’s finest works, a superb addition to the twentieth-century piano repertory.
Schubert: Sonata in G, D.894 “Heavenly length” was Robert Schumann’s famous and fond description of Franz Schubert’s “Great” C Major Symphony. The same phrase could be applied to the D. 894 G major Piano Sonata, which Schumann declared to be his favorite, the most perfect in form and spirit. Written in October of 1826, this Sonata has perhaps come to be overshadowed by the three “posthumous” sonatas of 1828, but it is truly a unique work, introspective, serene, the kind of music that suspends time; yet, each movement features passionate outbursts, but they always melt back into the tender resignation of the whole. The expansive, hovering melody that opens the first movement is based on one of the composer’s favorite sequential plans: a phrase in the tonic key followed by an almost identical phrase in the dominant. Schubert’s handling of such a device is so natural and spontaneous that one feels as if a special world has been created in which all there is is this wonderfully expressive music. Eventually, we are led to a group of second themes which achieve delightful contrast through a more buoyant, dancing rhythm in the bass, and, later, with superbly melodic decoration, like fine embroidery. The development section is particularly effective, in that the whole stretch of the main theme is employed in imitative patterns played fortissimo and gaining in power until our special world shakes. Twice this mighty crescendo is sounded, and the second time the climax and relaxation occur in keys so chosen that Schubert may return to the quiet intimacy of his recapitulation through a G minor to G major change. A closing theme brings us back to the timeless, peaceful world in which we began, now even stripped of the “breathing rests” and modulations of the opening section, and the movement is brought to the most precious and intimate close in a voice of pure spirit.
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The D major Andante is not a “Theme and Variations”, but it feels like one, so skillful is the manipulation of the two song-like themes. The soothing first theme is accompanied by long, sustained chords, and features graceful ornamental turns; the sustained chords come from upbeats, so they seem actually to participate in the languid motion of the theme. Without warning we are assaulted by a leaping chordal outburst, bitter and resentful, which then winds down to a plaintive, drawn-out song, typically Schubertian in its constant shifts between major and minor. These gruff outbursts and soulful interludes--like commentaries--continue, and their richness of expression and variety of texture add to the feeling of constant variation which is so strong in this movement. It is very much as if we are hearing a story of personal experience. Surprisingly, as if there is more of melancholy to be communicated, the Menuetto third movement begins in B minor. Yet it is rather stately with deftly pointed appoggiaturas. The Trio is a poetic little Laendler in B major derived in a flash of inspiration from the close of the Menuetto. It is one of Schubert’s loveliest creations. The Rondo Finale is a joyful thing, evoking the pastoral Austrian countryside in the most pleasant way, “whose main subject returns unruffled after two extended, lilting excursions in the Vienna woods” writes the talented and erudite pianist Anton Kuerti. G major is the main key (there is an interesting episode in C minor decorated by short, scale like passages) until late in the movement, when during an extended coda there is a seemingly heroic modulation to B-flat major, but is done with a certain smile, and we soon settle back into the friendly realm of the home key. The movement may then come to an increasingly tender conclusion, as a last haunting invocation of the repeated notes of the main theme fade into the peculiar timelessness of this wonderful sonata.
Ravel: Valses nobles et sentimentales La valse “The Swiss Clockmaker” was what Igor Stravinsky called Maurice Ravel, referring ostensibly to the older composer’s coolness and meticulous attention to detail. “People say that I have no heart,” Ravel explained. “It is not true. But I am Basque, and Basques feel things very strongly, yet seldom reveal their feelings, and then only to a very few.” There were many contradictory things about Ravel. Not a great pianist, which he knew very well, he imagined and created some of the most difficult and colorful piano music ever written, exploring the limitations of the instrument in extraordinary ways. “Those who are born after such great spirits as Beethoven and Wagner, the epigones, have no easy task,” said Mahler. “For the harvest is already gathered in, and there remain only a few solitary ears of corn to glean.” Ravel knew this very well too, and he knew precisely what he was good at. He worked very hard at it. A work that Ravel conceived for orchestra and later arranged for piano—an unusual procedure for him—is La valse. Originally called a “poème choregraphique,” Ravel imagined great numbers of waltzing couples emerging from the timeless mists. Sergei Diaghilev, director of the Ballets Russes and commissioner of the work, thought it more a “portrait of a ballet,” an opinion he delivered on hearing the piece in Ravel’s two-piano version in 1920. Consequently Diaghilev did not want to stage it, and it was first heard in its orchestral form at a concert of the Lamoureux Orchestra in December of 1920; it had Inon Barnatan
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been given in Vienna in its two-piano version two months earlier. In the same year, Ravel made a solo piano version (on three staves) which causes a single player to virtually make his own version, choosing how he will render the score. (Glenn Gould chose to dub in the third part). La valse is a sort of super-waltz that begins in the depths and eventually reaches a huge and violent climax. Considering this violence, and the five hammer blows with which it concludes, one is tempted to think, as many have, of a patriotic Frenchman who had had a ghastly experience in the Great War writing a vehemently anti-Austrian work as a statement of principle. Of course everyone may decide for themselves.
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ABOUT THE ARTIST Inon Barnatan is widely recognized for communicative, insightful playing that combines an extraordinary depth of musicianship and an impeccable technique. He has performed with many of the country’s most esteemed orchestras and the world’s leading conductors. In January, he made his New York Philharmonic debut as the inaugural Artist-in-Association, a new position that highlights an emerging artist over the course of several consecutive seasons through concerto and chamber music appearances, building a relationship between the artist, the Philharmonic, and its audiences. In 2009, he was awarded the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant. His most recent album, Darknesse Visible, was named one of the top classical recordings of 2012 by The New York Times and BBC Music Magazine’s Instrumentalist CD of the Month. Inon Barnatan released an album of Schubert’s late works on Avie in fall 2013. Highlights of the 2013-14 season include engagements with the Atlanta, Bangor and Oregon Symphony Orchestras and the Boulder and Fresno Philharmonics. In September Mr. Barnatan gave the world premiere performance of a new work for solo piano by Matthias Pintscher at London’s Wigmore Hall. He will again join Mr. Pintscher in a performance of Beethoven’s fourth piano concerto with the Utah Symphony. Mr. Barnatan will give recitals at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam and at The Frederic Chopin Society in St. Paul, Minnesota. He will perform chamber music at The Hague in Amsterdam, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Santa Fe Chamber Music Society, and will perform with the Jerusalem Quartet in Vancouver. Mr. Barnatan will also tour Europe with cellist Alisa Weilerstein. Mr. Barnatan was a member of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s CMS Two program from 2006 to 2009, and is still a regular performer on CMS programs. In 2009 he curated a festival of Schubert’s late works for the Society, the first musician other than the Society’s Artistic Directors to be invited to program concerts. ‘The Schubert Project’ has also been performed at the Concertgebouw, the Festival de México and at the Library of Congress. Born in Tel Aviv in 1979, Inon Barnatan started playing the piano at the age of three and made his orchestral debut at eleven. In 1997 he moved to London to study at the Royal Academy of Music and in 2004 pianist Leon Fleisher invited Mr. Barnatan to study and perform Schubert sonatas as part of a Carnegie Hall workshop.
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COMING SOON Travel Adventure Film Series Lost Worlds of the Middle East, with Rick Ray Monday, April 21 and Tuesday, April 22, 7:30 PM Union South - The Marquee Isthmus Jazz Series Brian Lynch w/UW Jazz Orchestra & UW Honors Jazz Band Thursday, May 1, 2014, 8pm Music Hall Keyboard Conversations with Jeffrey Siegel Mistresses and Masterpieces Tuesday, May 6, 7:30 PM Mills Hall
2 014 -15 CO N C E R T S E R I E S at the newly renovated Wisconsin Union Theater: Yo-Yo Ma, cello, with Kathryn Stott, piano, October 18, 2014 Valentina Lisitsa, piano, November 20, 2014 Chanticleer, February 21, 2015 Takacs Quartet, February 28, 2015窶認an Taylor Memorial Concert Sharon Isbin, guitar & Isabel Leonard, mezzo-soprano, March 21, 2015, Presented with Madison Opera Inon Barnatan
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